Congress Faces NASA’s Shaky Future

Congress took its first crack at coming up with a plan for NASA in the wake of an independent report that could mean big changes at the agency — or not.

The Augustine committee, as it’s known because of its head, Norm Augustine, sent over a summary of its findings to the Office for Science and Technology Policy last week. It contained five options for human spaceflight — four of them entailing major changes for the Bush-era Constellation program. All of the plans would require upping NASA’s annual budget by $3 billion a year.

Nearly all representatives on the House of Representatives’ Committee on Science and Technology focused on the need for more money, but little support was offered for any of the changes to the Constellation program. Representative after representative asked Norm Augustine and his co-author, MIT professor, Edward Crawley, if one of the plans was substantially better than Constellation. Both demurred.

Some House members were particularly spirited in their defense of both NASA and the Constellation program, particularly Gabrielle Giffords, a democrat from Arizona, who heads the space and aeronautics subcommittee (and who is married to an astronaut).

“Instead of focusing on how to strengthen the exploration program in which we have invested so much time and treasure, they gave only glancing attention to Constellation—even referring to it in the past tense in their summary report and instead spent the bulk of their time crafting alternative options that do little to illuminate the choices confronting Congress and the White House,” she said.

The vehemence and more-or-less agreement of the committee that Constellation is still viable means that the Obama administration will have to do some serious work on Capitol Hill, if it wants to make big changes to NASA’s human spaceflight program. It had been widely believed that the administration did want to make such changes, but the strong bi-partisan opposition in the House to pulling the plug on Constellation might make them think twice.

The specter of Chinese competition in space was raised again and again, most pointedly by Parker Griffith, a democrat from Alabama. John F. Kennedy and the Apollo program were also mentioned at least a half dozen times a piece.

Alternative views of NASA’s mission — like, say, that human exploration could take up an inordinate chunk of the agency’s budget — were excluded from the hearing.

Only Vernon Ehlers, Republican from Michigan, was even willing to question the notion of a new space race.

“I think the era of bragging rights of having done something first is over,” Ehlers said.

So, the battle will likely remain over what kind of human spaceflight program NASA will conduct, and with what money. On that score, Mike Griffin, former NASA administrator, lined up firmly in support of Constellation, the program he began.

In a nicely choreographed question-and-answer session with Giffords, Griffin chipped away at the fundamental soundness of the Augustine report.

Griffin says that he was provided their methodology and that it was unrealistically hard on NASA and soft on the new options it presented. A consistent theme for Griffin and the pro-Constellation committee members was that NASA’s already sunk a lot of money into Constellation. That’s led to technical “maturity,” which makes current cost estimates for the program more realistic than new ideas.

Griffin was also highly skeptical of the ability of commercial space firms to provide human transport to low-earth orbit.

“At this point, betting the farm on commercial transportation is unwise,” Griffin said. “I am one who believes that — as with airplanes and air transport — there will be a day when the US government as one option can turn to commercial providers but that day is not yet and it’s not soon.”

The key question that emerged from the hearing is whether or not any of the new options presented by the Augustine panel are exciting enough to ditch Constellation or even some pieces of it.

“Good public policy would tell us that there needs to be a compelling reason to scrap what we’ve invested our time and money in over the years,” said the chairman of the House committee, Bart Gordon, in opening the hearing.

After three and a half hours of testimony, it seemed clear that most members of the House committee were not so compelled.

Wired Science liveblogged this important meeting. The minute-by-minute updates are archived below.

11:08 AM: Bart Gordon, the Science and Technology committee chairman and Tennessee Democrat, opens up the meeting with a shot across the Augustine committee bow. “Good public policy would tell us that there needs to be a compelling reason to scrap what we’ve invested our time and money in over the years,” Gordon said, perhaps implying that he hadn’t seen any compelling reasons in the Augustine summary report. He wants to know if there are any “technical” or safety show-stoppers.

11:15 AM: Ralph Hall, ranking Republican on the committee also hammered on safety, particularly with regard to commercial space alternatives. “Commercial service should not be considered a cheap substitute for lack of national leadership in human spaceflight,” Hall said. “You get what you pay for,” he concluded. The nearly explicit message from Hall’s statement is that you can’t expect NASA-level safety from commercial companies. (He also briefly lobbied for more money for NASA.)

11:18 AM: Augustine takes the stand. He’s going to summarize the committee’s summary of its report.

11:23 AM: “From a safety standpoint, we’re not prepared to undertake a program to go directly to Mars at this point in time. There’s a great deal of additional homework to be done,” Augustine says, noting that some people don’t agree with him.

11:25 AM: “The reluctant bottom line conclusion of our committee is that our current program as it’s being pursued is not executable,” Augustine says.

11:27 AM: “We have sought to be relatively conservative in our estimates of cost, schedule and performance,” Augustine says. “We do that because it reflects our dissatisfaction at our record of doing these things in the past. Estimating that is.”

11:31 AM: Boom! Constellation is “fatally flawed” with the current budget, Augustine says. But he also says that they say “no problems that appear to be unsolvable given the proper engineering talent, attention, and the funds to solve them.” Then, he turns over the mic to Crawley.

11:33 AM: Constellation has problems, Crawley says, but that they didn’t see any of them — including the “famous vibration problem” in Ares-I or the noise environment in Orion — as insurmountable.

11:35 AM: Chairman Gordon is right on point and very forthright. “We do have a program that’s been authorized we’ve spent billions of dollars on,” he says. “I don’t think you trade what you know for what you don’t know if it’s equal. Are you prepared to say that one or all of the options are substantially better than Constellation and worth having a major turn?”

11:37 AM: Augustine punts, largely, on that question. “We believe the existing program would be a fine program,” he says. But Gordon presses on saying, “That wasn’t really an answer to the question.”

11:40 AM: The conversation shifts as Republican Hall takes the floor. He asks Augustine how to “close the gap” between when the shuttle stops flying and when we’d have a near option for reaching near Earth orbit. Augustine says that the only way is to extend the Shuttle’s life.

11:43 AM:Augustine makes an interesting point. The shuttle program is bearing a lot of the general overhead costs of NASA. If you shutdown shuttle, then the costs would just go somewhere else, probably to Constellation. He says that the net cost of continuing to fly the Shuttle a couple of times per year is about $2.5 billion.

11:46 AM: Crawley adds that they looked at lots of options and “none of them closed the gap from above.” With a smile at the committee, he says “The time to close the gap was with investments in 2008 and 2009 and 2010, and here we are at the verge of 2010 and no expenditure will accelerate significantly a new US capability much earlier than 2015, 16, 17.”

11:48 AM:“Your report seems to treat all the potential launch options the same. I guess, how did the panel evaluate the crew panel safety aspect of any option other than the Constellation?” Hall asks.

11:50 AM: Augustine says safety was their top priority. Then, he provides a a bit of insight into their methodology. “We are skeptical of comparing analytical safety calculations with proven safety calculations,” he said.

11:53 AM:Representative Brad Miller, Democrat, North Carolina delivers a mini-speech asking why NASA contracts out so much work, saying it’d be cheaper and better to bring more people in house. Then he asks why the Augustine report suggests that contractors would close the gap faster.

11:56 AM:“It’s our view that NASA would be better served rather than trucking hardware to people in low earth orbit to be pursuing an energetic exploration program,” Augustine says. “Let the private sector deliver the mail, if you will.” But he doesn’t really explain why, specifically.

11:59 AM: Pete Olson, Republican from Texas, is up. “You threw cold water in our face and got us to look at this program realistically,” he says, appreciatively, it seems. Then, he asks, “What, in your opinion, is the importance of human spaceflight to this nation?”

12:02 PM: “The programs have to be justified, we think to a large degree, on a tangible basis. Namely to lay the path forward for humans to move into the solar system,” Augustine answers (no doubt to cheers from Wired Science exploration nerds). “In so doing, we establish our nation as a leader in an important and challenging area.”

12:06 PM: Gabrielle Giffords, Democrat from Arizona, head of the space subcommittee, is up. She delivers a short paean to American human spaceflight, then tells Augustine, “I’m pretty angry,” about the report. She says that the report’s main conclusion — that NASA didn’t have enough money — was already well-known.

12:12 PM: Now, Giffords is delivering an impassioned defense of NASA and its engineers and contractors. She says that the panel ducked the main issue, giving “a glancing attention to Constellation, even referring to it in the past tense.” Instead, she thunders, the committee wasted their opportunity “spending the bulk of the time crafting alternative options that do little to illuminate the choices that are really confronting Congress and the White House.” She calls the Augustine report options “cartoons” without detailed cost estimates, etc. (Here’s Gifford’s full statement, which she posted to her website.)

12:15 PM: “In the absence of mismanagement or technological showstoppers… none of which the Augustine panel has indicated has occurred in this program. Can any of us justifying canceling [Constellation]? I know I can’t justify doing this,” Giffords concludes.

12:19 PM: Augustine defends his committee, saying, “I respect your feelings, but question your facts.” He says that no one is “recommending” that Constellation should be canceled, and that they were merely presenting options to the current program.

12:21 PM: Dana Rohrabacher, Republican from California, is also taking Augustine to task. “Constellation is a perfectly good program, we’re just $3 billion short,” Rohrabacher said. Then he rails on about Federal spending saying, “We’ve been throwing a lot of money around in this city, but we’re shortchanging our space program.” Finally, he chides Augustine and his panel, “I had been hoping we’d be getting more creative options from you people.”

12:25 PM: Marcia Fudge, Democrat from Ohio, asks whether or not the Augustine commission is recommending that Ares-I be stopped. Augustine dodges and says that it’s an option.

12:27 PM: If NASA doesn’t get more money, “It will be a program that will inspire very few people,” Augustine says.

12:29 PM: Vernon Ehlers, Republican from Michigan, supports the Augustine commission, noting that Giffords is married to an astronaut and saying Augustine and Crawley haven’t “deserved” the criticism they’ve gotten from the committee.

12:32 PM: “I think the era of bragging rights of having done something first is over,” Ehlers says. He sounds eminently reasonable in making a plea for more international cooperation.

12:35 PM: Parker Griffith, Democrat from Alabama, is up. He represents the area around Marshall Space Flight Center, which stands to lose a lot if Constellation is substantially changed or canceled. He says that America needs to “meet the challenge of China” in spaceflight, saying, “I will, in fact, submit this is a national security issue.” (He mentioned China half a dozen times, asking Americans to imagine “their equivalent of Walter Cronkite” describing a Chinese moon landing.)

12:42 PM: “We do think that NASA could conduct a sensible program,” with $3 billion per year, Augustine says, either with Constellation or without it.

12:46 PM: Donna Edwards, Democrat from Maryland, said that she supported Representative Giffords’ remarks, then chided the committee for the dour message it sounded in the media. “It’s hard to regroup,” she said, and get positive momentum going again for human spaceflight.

12:50 PM: The real fireworks could still be coming up! Mike Griffith, the former NASA head, still hasn’t testified.

12:54 PM: “We’ve offered only one conclusion and that’s that the current program does not have enough money to be completed,” Augustine says. “Beyond that, we’ve offered options for you and the President to make decisions.”

12:57 PM: Suzanne Kosmas, Democrat from the Florida district in which Kennedy Space Center is located, says “it is essential that we maintain a professional and viable workforce to ensure the leadership of this nation in our innovation and competitiveness which I think is also critical to national security as we move forward in space exploration.” This is not exactly surprising, but she asks Augustine and Crawley which option “offers the best protection” for the spaceflight workforce she represents.

12:59 PM: Crawley says that “the problem is that the options tend to do different things” to the space workforce. “Variants that extend the Shuttle or Shuttle-heritage systems do tend to preserve the workforce preferentially,” he says.

1:10 PM: After a fiery beginning, the hearing has settled down. Most of the early anger towards Augustine and Crawley seems to have dissipated. Checking in, the Obama administration might have a real uphill battle changing the Constellation program.

1:14 PM: Alan Grayson, Democrat from Florida, quotes Kennedy and asks Augustine and Crawley which of the options is the best, in essence. Crawley and Augustine highlight “The Flexible Path,” an option that would take humans beyond low-earth orbit without landing on the moon. We noted last week that it has seemed like the Augustine commission’s preferred option, though they aren’t explicitly saying so.

1:18 PM: “I commend you for being honest with this body and I wish this body would be honest with itself,” Democrat Brian Baird of Washington State, said. “We can’t on the one hand decry Federal deficits and then on the other hand say ‘It’s just $3 billion.'” Then he asks, “Would you support repealing Federal tax cuts to fund this?” Augustine chuckles and says, “That’s beyond my pay grade, sir.”

1:22 PM: David Wu, Democrat of Oregon, is now up. He asks about international competition and cooperation. Crawley and Augustine say that Americans have to deliver on our obligations for the International Space Station to maintain any sort of credibility with our partners. Wu pushes back, asking whether or not other countries privilege moon landings over other types of space exploration. Crawley says that “our traditional allies” don’t.

1:33 PM: Augustine and Crawley are done. Retired Vice Admiral Joe Dyer of the U.S. Navy, and former NASA head Michael Griffin are now on the hotseat.

1:36 PM: Dyer is the chair of the Aerospace Safety Advisory panel. “We do note that the tempo and time restricted [the Augustine panel’s] work on safety,” he says. In particular, he took issue with the new options presented by the panel. “The summary report does reference current plans against a number of conceptual alternatives,” he says. “Powerpoint will always outshine programs of record.” With that in mind, he says that the safety of any new program would have to be much better safety-wise to think about starting over.

1:39 PM: Dyer wants “to be more transparent” about the risks of human spaceflight. “Lives will be lost in the exploration of space.”

1:40 PM: Michael Griffin, glasses far down his nose, begins talking. He seems emotional. He talks about the budget shortfalls of the last two decades.

1:44 PM: “If we had just kept NASA level in constant dollars in 1993 across two presidential administrations, no gains and no cuts.” Griffin says, “We’d have more money in the NASA budget today than the Augustine commission is recommending today.” (I.e. The NASA budget would have more than three billion more dollars in it per year.)

1:46 PM: Dyer made a definitive statement that he did not want to extend the Shuttle. Chairman Gordon asks him whether the Shuttle could just, you know, be flown a few more times. Dyer fires back, “The thing that scares us the most is that kind of serial extension… The time to extend the Shuttle in the panel’s opinion was several years ago when the supply chain was still intact.”

1:49 PM: Now Gordon asks Griffin about the Augustine panel conclusion that three billion more dollars would yield a viable space exploration program. “I do agree with Norm’s conclusion that if $3 billion were added to the program,” Griffin says, “the nation could have a viable space exploration program continuing with the Constellation program and featuring a return to the moon in the mid 2020s.”

1:51 PM: Ranking Republican Hall is now talking about the NASA budget during the 1990s. It seems his point is to blame the Clinton administration for what’s happened to NASA over the years. Griffin is playing along.

1:56 PM: Hall says that Congress “has not backed you up,” speaking directly to Griffin. He ends his statement, “Are you going to comment on that, son?” Griffin says that no President has requested the proper level of funds and “the question is if Congress wants to go along with that.”

2:06 PM: Griffin agrees with Giffords. “At this point, betting the farm on commercial transportation is unwise,” he says. “I am one who believe that — as with airplanes and air transport — there will be a day when the US government as one option can turn to commercial providers but that day is not yet and it’s not soon.”

2:07 PM: “Are the process and requirements for human rating well-understood by the commercial companies?” Pete Olson from Texas asks. Dyer responds that he feels NASA is moving in a good direction, but that the process of actually transferring human rating knowledge to commercial companies hasn’t begun.

2:12 PM: Olson asks Griffin if the Constellation program should continue in a somewhat leading way. “I agree that we should continue on,” Griffin says, “but we have come to a point where we cannot continue on unless the program is adequately funded.”

2:16 PM: Giffords is back up, after a brief Rohrabacher interlude. She asks Griffin about how accurate NASA cost assessments are.

2:18 PM: Griffin says that he was provided the methodology and that they did not give NASA credit for its improved cost methods. “NASA was not being given credit for good behavior… There was no distinction made between… viewgraph programs and real programs.” He argues NASA knows the Constellation cost estimates better than the Augustine panel could know the costs of the other options. “NASA’s current program has four years of maturity behind it,” Griffin argues. What he doesn’t discuss is that perhaps the Augustine panel, based on what it knows, might not believe that NASA’s costing methodologies really are any better.

2:21 PM: Dyer takes issues with the general costing methods used at government agencies. “We plan for an efficiency that’s not real,” Dyer says. “The cost of a program grows dramatically beyond what good resource management could provide.” He does not answer the question of whether NASA planned unrealistically in its original (and continuing) Constellation costing or not.

2:25 PM: And… It’s over. At least the hearing is. Expect to hear a lot more about the Augustine report’s recommendations and the Constellation program. The entrenched NASA institutions working on Constellation certainly made their power felt through their Representatives today. Griffin and the House members also began to chip away at the methodology that the report used to come to its conclusions. In other words, the Obama administration will not be able to hide behind the Augustine report in making major changes to NASA’s program. They’ll need other evidence and a compelling alternative vision. Well, that, and a way to keep the folks at Johnson, Marshall, and Kennedy Space Center employed so their Congressional representatives support the plan.